Archive for the ‘Abu Laith al-Libi’ Category

In the predawn hours of Jan. 29, a CIA Predator aircraft flew in a slow arc above the Pakistani town of Mir Ali. The drone’s operator, relying on information secretly passed to the CIA by local informants, clicked a computer mouse and sent the first of two Hellfire missiles hurtling toward a cluster of mud-brick buildings a few miles from the town center.

MQ-1 Predator

The missiles killed Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda commander and a man who had repeatedly eluded the CIA’s dragnet. It was the first successful strike against al-Qaeda’s core leadership in two years, and it involved, U.S. officials say, an unusual degree of autonomy by the CIA inside Pakistan.

Having requested the Pakistani government’s official permission for such strikes on previous occasions, only to be put off or turned down, this time the U.S. spy agency did not seek approval.

Is the killing of a top al Qaeda commander by a CIA drone the beginning of a turning point in the war on terrorism?

The “sudden discovery” of such high-ranking members of Osama bin Laden’s terror network in Pakistan contradicts claims by the country’s president. “It has the potential to embarrass President Pervez Musharraf, who repeatedly said he would not sanction U.S. military action against al Qaeda members operating in his country,” stated a comprehensive
study….

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb. 3 — A Libyan al-Qaeda commander who was killed last week in northwestern Pakistan had lived there for years and, despite a $200,000 U.S. bounty on his head, felt secure enough to meet officials and visit hospitals, according to officials and residents of this city.

As he organized suicide bombings and other attacks in neighboring Afghanistan, Abu Laith al-Libi found a comfortable refuge in Pakistan’s border region, the sources said in interviews. He met openly with a Pakistani politician and a Libyan diplomat and called on foreign fighters recovering from their wounds.

The Pakistani government contends it has been doing everything possible to capture al-Qaeda figures within its borders. But Libi, who was killed in a missile attack last week, moved unchallenged around the heart of Peshawar, a city of about 1.2 million people, underscoring how freely he and other al-Qaeda leaders have been able to operate in Pakistan.

A senior al Qaeda leader responsible for numerous attacks on American troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere was killed several days ago in Pakistan in a missile attack that an Islamist Web site blamed on the U.S.

Abu Laith al-Libi, a known top-tier commander of al Qaeda’s combat operations in the region and No. 12 on the U.S. most-wanted list, was killed in his compound in a village about nearly 3 miles outside Mir Ali in North Waziristan. An Islamist Web site first reported al-Libi’s death, which it blamed on the U.S., saying yesterday he had been “martyred” but not describing how. The site did not say who might succeed him.
“We congratulate the Islamic nation for the martyrdom of the sheik, the lion, Abu Laith al-Libi,” said a banner which appeared in a section of the Web site.

DUBAI (Reuters) – A leading al Qaeda member in Afghanistan, Abu Laith al-Libi, has been killed, a Web site often used by the group and other Islamists said on Thursday.

A banner on the Ekhlaas.org site said Libi had fallen as a martyr, without giving further details.
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It was not immediately clear if Libi’s death was linked to a suspected U.S. missile strike that killed up to 13 foreign militants in Pakistan‘s North Waziristan region this week.

The attack had targeted second or third tier al Qaeda leaders, according to residents in the tribal area.